Apr 042014
 


cover art by Anne O’Neill

I’ve been waiting impatiently to hear Majestic Downfall’s contribution to the band’s forthcoming split with The Slow Death for two weeks, ever since hearing the latter band’s part of the split (which I thought was wonderful). And this morning it began streaming through the interhole. Using my well-known cat-like reflexes, I pounced on it without delay. I prepared to be enveloped in its fuzzy embrace, but instead lost my grip and fell into it like a drowning pool.

As the solo project of Zombiefication’s Jacobo Córdova, Majestic Downfall secured a place on my personal “listen to everything they do” list with 2013’s Three, an album from which we had the pleasure of premiering a song last year. And this new song proves the wisdom of pouncing on the band’s every new release without delay.

The song’s name is “The Dark Lullaby” and it’s an amazingly rich and varied tapestry of sound that makes full use of its 13 minute run-time. It may be premature to say this, since I’ve only heard the song a few times, but I’d venture to say that it’s the best thing I’ve yet heard from this very talented project.

The song is full of contrasts and is impressively dynamic, both in its pacing and in its changing moods. It joins together massive guitar tone and huge, brutish bass hammers with light, ringing guitar harmonies. It incorporates melodies that are both entrancing and drenched in sorrow. It pairs gargantuan roars that come up from some bottomless abyss with harrowing howls that convey sensations of intense anguish. Slow, skull-splitting riffs and gut-punching drums cohabit the song with ripping tremolo- and blastbeat-driven storm fronts. And in the song’s second half, you’re treated to a squalling guitar solo that will seize your attention, followed by a heavy guitar motif that wouldn’t be out of place in a Scandinavian-styled melodic death metal anthem.

The music includes beautiful, reflective moments as well as crushing ones — and those lighter passages make the weight of the heavier assaults that follow even more pulverizing. Although the overarching style of the music is dooooooom, elements of death metal and black metal are integrated naturally and effectively. And really, that’s what’s most striking about the song — the way in which Majestic Downfall integrates all of the varied elements so organically to make a richly textured and seamless unity. In a word, it’s fantastic.

 

The split will be released in the near future by Chaos Records. When we learn a release date, I’ll provide it here. Stream “The Dark Lullaby” below.

https://www.facebook.com/majestic.downfall/
https://www.facebook.com/chaosrecords

 

  7 Responses to “MAJESTIC DOWNFALL: “THE DARK LULLABY””

  1. Thanks a lot for the words bro!

  2. What a stunning song, it flows naturally from a beautiful melody maintaining a crushing heaviness and it fits perfectly with the running time, you are right right Islander, in a word, it’s fantastic and I hope to hear more soon because I’m completely astounded by their ability to create something so intense and fluent as “The Dark Lullaby” and if we have to think about their latest awesome record words maybe will be not enough, thank you one more time, I truly love this site, your flair for the good music is magnificent!

  3. Oh what a fucking great song!! Hurry up and release this so I can throw money at you!

  4. a fantastic song, Córdova is just amazing

  5. Amazing, had to hit play again as soon as it stopped! Three is an amazing album and definitely wanting more. Luckily, I found more on Bandcamp.

  6. I’m getting a bit of an Insomnium vibe from this in parts. Which is awesome, though unexpected.

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